34 A COLLECTING TRIP 
streets are dirty and disgustingly ill-smelling. We saw 
camels coming in from various directions, I suppose 
with country produce. The streets were filled with 
Moors riding on donkeys and women with veils over 
their faces. After seeing the port doctor, who gave us 
a permit to get back on our ship, we went on board 
and got well settled down. We have a good room. 
The boatman who took us from shore kept yelling 
‘‘baber’’ in my ear and I failed to understand what 
the chap wanted. Finally, with the help of another 
Arab, he enticed me into the doctor’s office ; the doctor 
was a Frenchman who explained that I would have 
to have a pass to get on the ship again. The ‘‘baber’’ 
was the nearest the boatman could get to paper, which 
he knew we needed. After awaiting our turn for a 
few hours we got into the canal, which is more than 
eighty miles long, three hundred feet wide and thirty 
feet deep in the middle. As our boat was so large and 
as homeward bound vessels have the right of way we 
had to tie up to the bank eleven times before we got 
to Suez on the Red sea end of the canal. The passage 
took twenty-one hours. It was most interesting, par- 
ticularly the running at night by the aid of a big 
searchlight in the bows. A few years ago every boat 
had to tie up at night. The country on each side of 
the canal is an indescribably dreary desert. Only 
about the station houses, at the end of each section, 
where there are artesian wells, did it look green at 
all. But there dates and bananas were growing to 
perfection. Near Suez the fresh water canal from 
Cairo comes in and along this the country was very 
green and pretty. We passed Suez and anchored to 
take on fresh vegetables, ete. We bought some good 
